Friday, March 31, 2017

Activists in the United States have launched a campaign to highlight
rampant human rights abuses in Egypt in the run-up to President Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi's White House meeting next week.

The "Freedom First"
campaign run by US-Egyptian former political prisoner, Mohamed Soltan,
kicked off on Thursday after activists put up thousands of anti-Sisi
regime posters in Washington DC.

"This campaign is an effort to harness that same energy and build on
it to do the same for others who remain in the grips of injustice," Soltan told The New Arab

A press statement said: "President Trump is scheduled to meet with
Sisi, who Trump has called a 'fantastic guy' with whom he has 'good
chemistry'."

"Sisi has also overseen horrific human rights abuses, including the massacre of more than 1,000 activists in a single day, and the jailing of more than 40,000 activists and journalists without charge or trial," it added.

The campaign hopes to raise awareness about the tens of thousands of
prisoners of conscience in Egypt and the at least seven US nationals
unjustly imprisoned on politicized charges.

One Egyptian-US dual citizen being held is activist Aya Hegazy,
who worked with homeless children until police raided her charity in
May 2014 and arrested her and the staff at the Belady Foundation for
Street Children.

Hegazy has since been imprisoned on charges of exploiting minors and
encouraging them to join political protests led by the banned Muslim
Brotherhood.

Soltan, whose father is a leading Brotherhood official, was arrested
in August 2013 and sentenced to life in prison for allegedly attempting
to "destabilize" the country.

He was deported
to the US in June 2015 after going on a 489-day hunger strike, causing
relatives to fear for his life. His father, Salah was sentenced to death
in the same trial as his son and remains imprisoned in Egypt.

"I never lose sight of the immense effort it took on the part of
thousands of people, many of whom had never met me, to save my life,"
Soltan said.

Soltan had originally planned to kick off the campaign with ad spaces
on the Washington DC Metro, however, the transport network rejected the ads, arguing they violated its ban on "issues-oriented advertising."

In 2013, then-army chief Sisi led a military coup against Egypt's
first freely elected leader - the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi -
amid mass protests against his presidency.

The overthrow unleashed a deadly crackdown on Islamists, with more
than 800 peaceful protesters killed in a single day when police
dispersed a Cairo sit-in demanding Morsi's reinstatement.

Egyptian courts have since sentenced hundreds of Islamists to death,
including Morsi and other senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

This week, the White House announced
that Sisi would make an official visit to visit US President Donald
Trump on April 3 to "discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues".

The hashtag #FreedomFirst
has gained traction on Twitter shortly after it was introduced on
Thursday with social media activists calling attention to individual
cases of political prisoners under the Sisi regime.

After six years of procedural and legal maneuvers, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is free.
The top Egyptian appeals court acquitted him of involvement in the
killing of protesters during the 2011 popular revolt. Mubarak’s expected
freedom comes as many leaders of that revolt languish in Egyptian
prisons. The other members of Mubarak’s regime put on trial in 2011 have
also been set free. How did we get to this place?

In the weeks
and months following the toppling of the former Egyptian strongman in
2011, calls for justice on Cairo’s Tahrir Square turned into unified
demands for prosecutions of Mubarak and other officials responsible for
human rights abuses and economic crimes.

By August 2011, Mubarak, his
sons and a number of his top officials were on trial, accused of
corruption and ordering security forces to use lethal force against
protesters during the revolution.

The sight of Mubarak in the
defendant’s cage became a defining image of the Arab Spring. The trial
stunned Egyptians, many of whom doubted until the last minute that their
autocratic leader would be brought to justice.

Egypt is not
unique. Oppositions throughout the world have to balance the desire for
justice with the political constraints inherent in the absence of an
all-out revolution, coup or military victory.

Retributive measures are
frequently replaced with more lenient policies. The possibilities for
accountability are determined by the distribution of power among key
actors prevailing at the moment of transition. The greater the strength
of old elites vis-à-vis the new ones, the less likely are criminal
trials and other forms of retributive justice.

The Mubarak trial
began primarily in the context of a revolutionary moment in which the
power of the “street” was at its peak and the then-ruling military
council faced intense popular pressure to prosecute Mubarak and his top
officials. Yet, even when the revolutionary logic was at its height,
protesters had to contend with the Supreme Council of Armed Forces’s
(SCAF) determination to use its powers to protect its privileges and to
move the country toward elections on its own terms.

The
Mubarak trial was one of concessions made by the SCAF in a bid for
legitimacy. After the parliamentary elections of December-January
2011-2012 conferred electoral legitimacy upon the Muslim
Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the party sought
to negotiate the terms of the forthcoming handover of power with the
SCAF in anticipation of the central role it hoped to play in governing
the country.

Yet, the military allowed the trial to go forward, and even
after 2013, President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi appeared in no hurry to free
Mubarak. Why?

Interest in ensuring stability, building its
legitimacy and protecting its extensive economic and political
privileges drove the military’s approach. Key military figures, al-Sissi
included, have also attempted to co-opt the “spirit” of the revolution,
which was broadly popular, for their own purposes.

For example, the
military has simultaneously detained and repressed young revolutionary
protesters while at the same time going to great lengths to attempt to
co-opt the revolutionaries and the revolution, even giving special
medals to the martyrs who died during the uprising. The military’s
decision to allow the trial to move forward was part of broader goals
than just stability and momentarily pacifying protesters.

Indeed, the
military sought longer-term legitimacy from the “street” by co-opting
the revolution and buying support for an early transition plan. As such,
the military largely conceded to demands for justice in an ad hoc, reactive way, such as allowing for Mubarak’s prosecution after days of large demonstrations.

The decision to place Mubarak and his associates on trial was a clear
response to rising public pressure — and it also created a lasting
perception of the trial as political spectacle. That political
perception underscored how hastily prepared the trial was.

It was not
clear until the last moment that the trial would actually go forward.
Public pressure was central to Mubarak’s trial in the first place — and
it raised questions as to whether any judge would be able to render a
verdict without regard to public opinion.

Judges were fully
aware that anything less than a guilty verdict would lead to massive
street demonstrations. Despite this public pressure for a conviction,
state officials effectively blocked the prosecutor from gathering
sufficient evidence to establish Mubarak’s alleged role in ordering the
killings.

As the initial symbolic force of the trial started to
wane, its shallow nature did not escape the notice of those who paid the
highest price for it. As a mother of one of the victims said,
“We didn’t ask them for financial compensation or pensions. They are
doing that only to pacify people’s anger. All we want is fair trials.”
Beyond popular anger at the shortcomings of the Mubarak trial remained
broader concerns about more far-reaching reforms.

The
shortcomings of the Mubarak trial, and his ultimate acquittal, may lead
one to argue that the prospects for transitional justice were
inherently limited in the aftermath of a popular, but still incomplete,
political revolution. The truth is that the Mubarak trial was possible
precisely because its genesis was associated with a time when the
revolutionary logic of the Egyptian transition ruled.

Under its
subsequent, negotiated, logic (and then its rollback after 2013), the
possibilities for transitional justice greatly diminished. The sight of
Mubarak being rolled into the defendant’s cage to be tried for his
crimes was a powerful symbol of what 2011 represented for Egyptians and
other Arabs.

Never before had an Arab leader been held
accountable in such a visible way. Yet, the fact that the trial was
ultimately shallow, and that the conviction was ultimately overturned,
is an equally potent indicator of just how short the revolution fell of
accomplishing its goals of justice.

Ex-president acquitted this month on all charges of murdering protesters before he was ousted in Arab spring uprising in 2011

Ruth Michaelson

Friday 24 March 2017

Egypt’s former dictator Hosni Mubarak
has left the Cairo military hospital where he had been held in custody
for much of the past six years, and returned to his home in the Cairo
suburb of Heliopolis, his lawyer said.

He left the Maadi military hospital on Friday morning and returned to
his home, where he had breakfast with his family and a number of
friends, according to a report in the privately owned newspaper al-Masy
al-Youm. His lawyer, Farid al-Deeb, told the paper that Mubarak thanked
those who had supported him throughout his trial.

The strongman, who ruled Egypt
for nearly three decades, often appeared in a frail state during his
court appearances, attending on a stretcher and wearing dark sunglasses,
but the appearances put paid to repeated rumors of his death.

Mubarak was also healthy enough to appear at the window of his
hospital room to wave to supporters gathered outside on occasions
including his birthday and the anniversary of Egypt’s 1973 war with
Israel.

For those who worked to topple the former dictator,
Mubarak’s freedom marks a grim moment in Egypt’s modern history. Yet
some reacted with little more than resignation as his release became
imminent, numbed by the years of political turmoil since his fall.

“I’m neither sad nor disappointed,” said Tarek el-Khatib, whose
brother, Mustafa, was killed in the struggle to topple Mubarak. “I’d
have been surprised had things happened otherwise. Politically,
everything flew in this direction and paved the way for the normality of
this moment.”

Over the past six years there have been repeated efforts to punish
family members and business associates who profited from Mubarak’s
regime, largely without lasting consequence. Mubarak’s sons, Alaa and
Gamal, were freed
in October 2015, with a judge stating that they had served adequate
jail time on charges of corruption and embezzlement of public funds.

The notorious steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz, formerly the secretary general
of Mubarak’s now defunct National Democratic party, was named as an
honorary leader of a political party in 2016, although he had previously
served three years on corruption charges.

Despite describing
the revolution that ended Mubarak’s rule as “a turning point in Egypt’s
history,” Sisi and his military-backed government are regarded as the
autocrat’s political heirs.

“I think that Mubarak’s release was something expected as his
students are ruling the country,” said Mahienour el Massry, an activist
and lawyer who served 15 months in prison under Sisi’s rule. “The same
regime, the same corruption, the same brutality.

“Mubarak might be released, but in the eyes of those who believe in
the revolution he will always be a criminal killer and the godfather of
corruption,” she said. “This might be another round that we have lost,
but we will keep on fighting to change the inhuman regime that releases
criminals and imprisons innocent people.”

Others were less hopeful. Mubarak’s freedom meant the families of
those killed were “now praying for divine justice”, said Mohsen Bahnasy,
a human rights lawyer who served as a member of the commission of
inquiry into military abuses committed during the 2011 revolution.

Egypt’s highest appeals court previously rejected demands by the
families of those killed during the uprising to bring civil suits
against Mubarak for his role in the deaths of protesters. An official
inquiry later concluded that 846 people died and a further 6,467 were
injured during the revolution, as Egyptian security forces violently suppressed the protests which packed Cairo’s central Tahrir Square.

“The Mubarak acquittal is of significant symbolic value in that it
reflects an absolute failure of Egyptian judicial and legal institutions
to hold a single official accountable for the killing of almost 900
protesters during the January 25 revolution. It is indicative of a
deeper, compounded crisis of transitional justice,” said Mai el Sedany, a
legal expert with the Washington thinktank the Tahrir Institute for
Middle East Policy.

“This is a clear message to all Egyptians that no one will be held
accountable for any corruption or oppression in this country – the state
is loyal to its men and will continue to be,” said Khatib. “Don’t dream
of any revolution again.”

Mubarak’s release comes amid an economic crisis following years of
political tumult and worsening security. Egyptians complain of empty
pockets and rumbling bellies as inflation exceeds 30% and the government
tightens its belt in return for loans from the International Monetary
Fund.

“The economic crisis we are living in and the high prices take
priority over everything, as does the fear of terrorism. That is what
preoccupies ordinary citizens, not Mubarak,” said Khaled Dawoud, an
opposition politician who opposed the Islamists but also condemned the
bloody crackdown on them.

“When you see the group of people who show up and cheer and support
him, you are talking about 150, 200 people,” he said, referring to
occasional shows of support outside the Maadi hospital when Mubarak was
there.

In 1977, the Sex Pistols said anarchy was about destroying the passerby. In 2017, anarchy is apparently about fixing potholes.

A
group of anonymous anarchists in Portland, Oregon, ― where else? ― have
taken their version of anarchy to the streets to help their local
communities by fixing unsafe potholes themselves. The project, which
began in late February, is the coolest thing to happen to punk after
Green Day officially ruined it for everyone.

“The
roads in Portland were getting worse and worse, and like everyone else,
we were just waiting for someone else to fix it,” a member with the
Portland Anarchist Road Care, or PARC, told The Huffington Post in an
email. “We sort of reflected on the situation, and asked ourselves the
questions made famous by John Lewis: ‘If not us, then who? If not now,
then when?’ Two days later we were patching holes.”

On Facebook, PARC is keeping their more than 4,000 followers updated with their progress. So far, they said they’ve repaired five potholes. They said they believe in community solutions over “hierarchical institutions like government.”

It
might seem confusing. Anarchism usually tends to conjure up images of
angry men in Guy Fawkes masks setting things on fire. But that’s not
what PARC is about.

"Many
of the critiques we have received from the left have said we should be
tearing the streets up, rather than paving them,” PARC told HuffPost.
“We find this view ableist, classist and antisocial. To us, anarchy is
about building community and creating networks of solidarity and mutual
aid."

The
anarchists have also faced criticism from ― you guessed it! ― the
government. Dylan Rivera with the Portland Bureau of Transportation told
HuffPost that fixing potholes should be left to professionals.

“Patching
can pose a risk to the individuals doing the patching because there’s
traffic moving on these streets, and they may not have the proper
equipment or training to make a safe work zone for themselves.”

What
the anarchists are doing is illegal, Rivera said. But he sympathizes
with them, saying he understands the public frustration with potholes,
especially after a heavy rain and snow-battered winter.

“Portlanders
are very community minded,” Rivera said. “They express themselves in
many ways, whether its parades or helping neighbors out in snowstorms,
and so we see what these folks are doing as really an extension of the
community mindedness of Portlanders.”

Rivera also mentioned that earlier this month, the city spent a full day to fill more than 900
of the dangerous road hazards. Rivera said weather conditions also need
to be dry for city workers to fix the potholes. PARC disagrees.

“[The
PBC] use the excuse of not being able to pour hot asphalt in the rain,
but there are alternatives,” PARC said. “The method we use, called cold patching,
is less permanent than the hot asphalt that is traditionally used, but
it is able to be used in the rain. There are steel road plates that
could be laid over the worst of the potholes, which measure easily over
ten feet long.”

Rivera
said the city has used cold patching in the past before, but not often
because it’s a temporary solution. Instead of fixing paved roads, which
are maintained by the city, Rivera suggested the anarchists could offer
help to neighbors who live on gravel roads as they’re not maintained by
the city. He said as long as the property owners are agreeable to it,
citizens can help patch those holes up.

PARC said they have received an influx of volunteers to help, and plan to “mobilize hundreds of people all across the city.”

“[Anarchy]
is about claiming communal ownership over our spaces, be they public,
work, educational, or otherwise,” PARC said. “Our work directly puts
that ideology into practice. They are our roads, we use them every day,
and we will fix them together.”

Crowds take to streets in Alexandria, Giza and other areas after government cuts supply of subsidised bread amid economic crisis

Tuesday 7 March 2017

Egyptians took to the streets in several cities on Tuesday in angry
demonstrations at government cuts to bread subsidies in the face of a
deep economic crisis and food rationing.

Reports and videos on
social media showed crowds in central Alexandria protesting after
bakeries refused to take paper subsidy cards, which many poor Egyptians
use to gain a government ration of bread. Protests were also reported in
Minya, Desouk, and the Imbaba suburb of Cairo.

They come days
after the minister of supplies, Ali Moselhy, cut by two thirds the
number of subsidised loaves bakeries were allowed to dole out per day to
cardholders. A separate electronic card scheme was not affected.

Protesters clashed with police and blocked the main street in Imbaba as they demonstrated against the government decision.

Montaser
Awad, who was protesting in Giza, told Middle East Eye: "Most of the
families in poor areas have paper cards. We have been trying for years
to get the electronic card, but you have to bribe the employees to
follow up.”

Somaya, a housewife from Imbaba, said that by 10am,
all 500 of the subsidised loaves had been handed out, meaning she could
not get her daily 20 loaves for her family.

"The
government is trying to limit the spending, so they apply pressure on
the poor. I get 20 loaves for a family of five," she said.

Somaya said people expressed their frustration at those in control, and then turned their attention to police when they arrived.

Social
media reports suggested police had fired warning shots over the heads
of demonstrators in Imbaba, although Middle East Eye is unable to verify
the reports.

Said, who works at the Monera al-Gharbiya government supplies office,
said that the problem has been taking place for two days now. He added
that several people from the ministry and the province came here to
negotiate with the locals but in vain.

The office where Said works
was stormed by the citizens while chanting against the government.
"There were about a hundred, men and women. I cannot blame them. But we
are just servants at the government. We face the same problems at our
houses.”

Said explained that the orders were to stop dealing with
the paper cards. “We used to distribute 1,500 loaves but now we only do
500 now," he said.

"These types of cards are called the golden cards, which include the paper cards and the poor who don't have any cards."

“The reason why the government is doing this is because they saw that
the amount of bread consumed by these golden cards are huge. They
decided to cut it.”

Abdel Sabour, another protester, managed to
get five of the 20 loaves he had hoped for. "I haven't had breakfast.
The government has to withdraw this decision."

Police officials
and national security agents have asked protesters to return home,
saying their demands would be satisfied if they stopped protesting,
according to tweets from protesters.

Social reports said the rail link between Cairo and Minya in Upper Egypt had also been blocked by protesters.

Protesters also blocked railway station in Desouk, 80km east of Alexandria in the Kafr el-Sheikh province.

"We
want to eat! We want bread!" protesters chanted in what appeared to be
peaceful protests, according to Egyptian journalists on the ground.

The
government recently lifted subsidies on staple foods, and has suffered
shortages of other basic foodstuffs, as Egypt faces a currency crisis
and rampant inflation that has hit more than 20 percent.
Moselhy
replaced Major General Mohammed Ali el-Sheikh as minister of supplies in
February following widespread shortages of sugar.

The Egyptian
minister of foreign affairs, Sameh Shoukry, was in Brussels on Monday to
discuss the social and political situation of the country with EU
member state foreign ministers.

Shoukry said he hoped the EU
would understand "the nature of the reform process undertook by Egypt"
and said he understood the existing political and security challenges.

Former Egyptian president cleared of involvement in death of protesters during 2011 uprising that ended his reign

Egypt’s top appeals court has found Hosni Mubarak
innocent of involvement in the killing of protesters during the 2011
uprising that ended his 30-year rule, marking the final ruling in a
landmark case.

Mubarak was the first of the leaders toppled in a wave of Arab
uprisings to face trial. In scenes that captivated Egyptians, he
appeared in a courtroom cage on charges ranging from corruption to
complicity in the murder of protesters.

The case has traced the trajectory of Egypt’s Arab spring, with Mubarak originally sentenced to life in prison in 2012
for conspiring to murder 239 demonstrators during the 18-day revolt –
an uprising that sowed chaos and created a security vacuum but also
inspired hope for an era of democracy and social justice.

But an appeals court ordered a retrial that culminated in 2014 in the
case against the former president and his senior officials being dropped. An appeal by the public prosecution led to Thursday’s final retrial by the court of cassation.

The 88-year-old ailing former leader resides in a Cairo military hospital, where he served a three-year sentence for a separate corruption case. The military overthrew Mubarak’s successor, the Islamist Mohamed Morsi, in 2013.

After a hearing that took most of the day, Judge Ahmed Abdel Qawi
announced to cheers of approval from the Mubarak supporters who filled
the courtroom: “The court has found the defendant innocent.”

The court also rejected demands by lawyers of the victims to reopen
civil suits. That left no remaining option for appeal or retrial,
according to a judicial source.

The families of those killed, who had attended the trial early on,
were not present on Thursday. Their lawyers condemned the verdict as
politically motivated.

“This ruling is not fair and not just. The judiciary is politicised,” said Osman al-Hefnway, a lawyer for the families.

Mubarak’s supporters cheered “long live justice” as the verdict was read out and unfurled posters of the former leader.